Saturday, March 31, 2007

A night of thunder- storms, high winds and nonstop rain across North Texas. I began to think the house might not stand up to the wind and water but here it is a sunny morning and we're still standing. Puddles everywhere and even the birds look bedraggled but it's a brand new day.

I played with the tile cutter for a couple of hours yesterday. I'm using this 14" tile cutter by Work Force that I got at Home Depot about 4 months ago for about $15. It must have been a close-out item because I can't find a cutter there now for less than $50.

This was a pretty cool tool once I got the hang of it. Cutting a tile is done in two steps. First you score the finished side of the tile by pushing the handle down and forward to press a rotating circular blade across the top of the tile. Then you pull the handle up and push down so that a cross piece behind the blade applies pressure to the tile to cleanly break it along the score. I had about twenty 3-inch tiles that I cut to 2" in about 30 minutes. The cutter works great if you're cutting off at least a half-inch of material but I had much less success when I tried to trim just 1/8" off the tiles. I could score the tile but when I tried to break it the tile would not break along the score but instead would break perpendicular to the score. I ended up scoring the tiles and then using tile nippers to break each tile bit by bit along the score. They ended up reasonably straight though not with such a clean edge. I don't know if a larger tile would fare any better. Using the nippers was more time-consuming and required good hand strength. Since I was cutting small pieces, they tended to fly in all directions so I solved the problem by placing the tile, the nippers and my hands inside a plastic grocery bag so it would contain the flying pieces. Gloves and goggles are also recommended.

All in all, a very practical tool for small jobs, and one I hope to use in the future for some kind of mosaic work. If you're going to do a lot of tile work you might need something more expensive, like a higher quality manual cutter or a wet saw.

Friday, March 30, 2007

As you can see, I've made some progress on my bathroom project. I set most of the field tiles on the wall above the broad side of the tub last weekend. I left space for a grab-bar and a soap dish and I still have a vertical row on the left and a partial row along the bottom which require the tiles to be trimmed to size. Today I will be learning how to use my new tile cutter and tile nippers to accomplish that.

I got this tile at Lowe's for a darn good price. It's "Cayman Dolphin" by Portobello and I think it was probably both the cheapest and nicest-looking tile they had. I think when I bought them they were said to be made of recycled materials, which made me like them even more, but I can't find any mention of that on the current websites. The tile came in 3x3 inch squares attached by plastic spacers to form a larger 12x12 square. This is my first attempt at setting tile and I thought it would be easier to set fewer big squares than a bunch of little ones. It was still quite a bit of work to trowel on the mortar and get it evenly thick on the wall. Then when I set the tiles I had to pound them with a rubber mallet to get them to sink down deep into the mortar and I found in many places I had put way too much mortar on and it squeezed out between the joints. I spent a lot of time wiping away the excess and that is a very messy job. I was glad I had laid a sheet of plastic in the tub and had a lot of old towels on hand. Even though the tiles were in big squares it wasn't that easy to keep even spaces between them while keeping them level. I had penciled lines on the cement board per many instructions I had downloaded from the net to help me line up the tiles but when you trowel on the mortar you can't see the lines anymore. I need to write somebody and ask how they are able to see through the mortar. :)

These jobs are never as easy as they look!!!!I'm still pretty happy with the results so far and I think once they're grouted the tiles will be stunning.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Another recent experiment in collage. I tried a couple of things for a background and was unhappy with it til I spotted the guy in goggles. Words about "success" kept jumping off the pages I was clipping and I decided this was my affirmation of the day - to think about success. Later I made up an alphabet of affirmations. My ABC's started like this:

AFFIRM

BELIEVE

CREATE

Even though my original idea didn't work as planned, I kept at it with my "regular" collage stuff and it turned out ok.

I'm realizing the sketchbook I'm using for my art journal doesn't stand up well to the layers of stuff I'm starting to glue and paint onto it. The pages are starting to get thicker and to curl at the edges from too much water. Pretty soon I won't be able to fully close the book. I think I'll try a book with watercolor paper in it next.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Lately I'm awakened almost every morning about 3 a.m. by a mocking- bird perched outside my bedroom window. About 6 or 7 the cardinals begin their vocal exercises. It's nesting season and these territorial birds are establishing their domains. It's one of my favorite things about spring. Here's one of said redbirds shot a week or so before these trees started setting leaves.

I went to the dentist yesterday for my second root canal in 3 weeks. I have bad teeth, heredity, I guess, so I've already had 4 or 5 root canals and I don't look forward to visiting any dentist. My newest doctor, a McKinney DDS, has amazed me with his technique & technology. It's been 2 years since my last dental work but it seems light years in the past compared to my recent experience. This guy has a computer monitor next to each chair and they take x-rays by inserting a small camera in your mouth. He and you can see the results of the x-ray immediately and you can sit there and study them as you wait for the anesthetic to take effect. Yesterday I was reflecting on the vast difference between my first root canal, done about 1976, and my more recent ones. Back then it took at least 30 minutes for your mouth to become completely numb. Now it takes about 5 minutes. Back then dentists worked with their bare hands; now they and their assistants use latex gloves and surgical masks. Back then you had to gag from whatever substance they had in your mouth and pray they would let you spit into the mini toilet bowl next to the chair; now they stretch a "rubber dam" across your face, isolating the area they're working on and preventing all that crap from running down your throat. It also allows you to swallow without disturbing what they're doing. When you do have stuff in your mouth they spray a mist of water in your mouth and let you use that wonderful straw invention that sucks everything away. Finally, I remember that first root canal hurt horrendously. I almost jumped during the procedure because the anesthetic didn't go deep enough and they had to give me an extra dose and wait to continue the procedure. Afterward, my dad drove me home, stopping on the way to pick up some superduper painkiller the dentist had prescribed. I had to take them immediately I hurt so bad and I was falling asleep by the time we got home. I was out for at least the rest of the day from those painkillers. With my recent work the dentist recommends Advil or Motrin and those far less potent drugs do the trick. I can drive, I can work, I can go about my life with what feels like soreness rather than pain. Now it's the next day and I'm almost ready to crunch apples with my new temporary crown. I don't know if it's the type of anesthetic or the technique the dentist uses, but I am really grateful for progress in dentistry.

Monday, March 26, 2007

I made 5 pages for the "Around the World" Chunky Page Swap on Flickr. This was my first experience making a "chunky" page and I really wasn't sure how to go about it. The pages are 4x4 inches with a 1/2 inch allowance for binding. I started out with collage components relating to Texas and my town of McKinney that included blubonnets, longhorns and a cowboy; typical texas themes. There aren't a lot of cattle in this area anymore as the land is being eaten up by new houses but there are definitely bluebonnets and cowboys, though the cowboys mostly drive pickup trucks. I added a photo of a local victorian house, because there are quite a few here in the old part of McKinney, a toothpick Texas flag, and a piece of rusty twisted wire from what's left of the 100-year-old fence on my property. Most of the wood pickets were either gone or broken; probably rotted from the English ivy that had enveloped the fence. I cut the ivy back, moved the fence from its precarious location and reassembled it as best as I could. I still have a number of pickets that I hope I can piece together and I'm looking at wood preservatives to see if I can save what's left of the wood.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

I love detective stories. Good detective stories. I think it started with an old Sherlock Holmes movie starring Basil Rathbone, which led me to read A. Conan Doyle's series of short story masterpieces. There have always been tv shows about detectives but my all-time favorite is Homicide: Life on the Street which ran from 1993 to 1999. Last fall the "collection to die for" was released on DVD at a bargain price, all six seasons, the final wrap-up movie, and extras neatly enclosed in a grey facsimile filing cabinet. Since McKinney is pretty far from the main broadcasting antennas in Cedar Hill I'm no longer able to get good regular tv reception and since I'm too cheap to purchase cable, I bought myself the set of Homicide DVD's so I could have something good to watch during my weekend down time. It's been money well spent.

Because of my work schedule I didn't even know about this show until it was well into its 3rd season. Last night I watched what I think was my first exposure to the show: "Cradle to Grave" in which Munch & Lewis investigate the death of a motorcycle gang member. I originally came in at the end of the episode in which two long lines of motorcyclists twine among the crosses and headstones of a cemetery to bury their comrade and Lewis, the only non-white person in the scene, makes his way through the gang to deposit the framed photo of a little girl onto the dead man's coffin, while Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders belt "I'll Stand by You" in the background. I didn't know what the scene meant, but I was intrigued. Later I caught a nearly complete episode with Lewis and his new partner Kellerman, and I was hooked.

When I got this collection I also began reading again my well-handled copy of David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets the story of the year he spent with the Baltimore Homicide Unit in 1988, and the basis for the Homicide tv show. Reading this book gives a lot of insight into what the Baltimore detectives have to deal with. That year there were 234 homicides in Baltimore, and in the next two there were 567. I've long thought of Dallas as a dangerous city, but in checking some reports, the most reported homicides in a single year was only slightly more than 200. According to the Morgan Quitno Awards site Baltimore is consistently rated as one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. For 2006 it was #2 while Dallas was #6 in cities of more than 500,000. They're close together on the list but when you compare the RATE of homicide, what a chasm between the two. The national homicide average is 5.7 percent (of what I'm not sure :). Dallas is much higher at 18.4 percent, but Baltimore is a whopping 41.9 percent, sandwiched right between Washington DC and Detroit. Suddenly Dallas looks a lot safer and I feel much for the war-weary homicide police of Baltimore. You go, detectives!

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Ok, I went & got my blog listed on the Delightful Blogs website. Thank you, Lynda, for featuring my blog. I don't know why I did it; I guess I just crave fame. Ha. Or at least attention.

I've used writing as a means to keep myself sane for a good part of my life, filling spiral bound notebooks with pages of drivel, writing a weekly music column for a local Bulletin Board (back in the day), doing research papers for college classes and co-authoring a genealogical history on my mom's family. Blogging seems to be the latest means of exercising my writing muscles, but sometimes I need a little kick in the pants to keep from slacking off and I thought if I think the blog is public I might be more likely to keep it up.

Here's a collage I did last night after reading yesterday's post by Tommy Kane. He described the creative process for his illustrations of the day wherein he picked up on things that he happened to run across, added some seemingly silly words, and came out with an integrated whole that was more than the sum of its parts. I decided to pick up a couple of piles of magazine clippings I have laying about and just pull out pieces until I got a composition. I also added silly and serious words with clippings and a gel pen and added some color with crayons. I was pleasantly surprised at the result. Practice is good for collage as well as for writing.

Friday, March 23, 2007

I drive past this house almost every day. It's just a few blocks from where I live and is affectionately referred to by a number of neighbors as the "Oh My God" House because the huge old victorian structure is such an unexpected sight after driving past nothing but single-story bungalows. The owners of this house have been renovating it for more than ten years and it's still not habitable. I guess I'm one-up on these folks; my house is nowhere nearly so grand, but at least my mom and I can live in it. Just barely. We had the kitchen rebuilt before we moved in and I probably would have had the bathroom done also but I just didn't have enough money at the time so I decided to do the work myself. Almost as soon as I had ripped out the crappy shower installation and pulled off the mildewed sheetrock cold weather set in. I insulated with fiberglass batts and screwed some hardibacker boards to the studs but the bathroom sat all winter in its twilight zone of disrepair; a depressing sight every time you'd go in. Last weekend I finally got the walls prepped and today I start installing tile. Wish me luck.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

In Texas blue is the color of joy.The bluebonnets are peeking through!

Some days I don't know whether to carry my camera or my art journal with me. Some days I just say "forget them both." Yesterday I picked my camera because the sky had turned dark and I hoped to shoot a couple of white water towers against a black sky. No such luck. The sky went light and started spitting rain but when I got to Irving I had to stop and shoot some of these yellow flowers that are covering fields and many slopes along the highways. As I approached the still-bare mesquite trees I noticed dots of blue in the greenery. It seemed too early but yes! they were bluebonnets. Soon these yellow fields will yield to the onslaught of our State Flower to become a mass of blue.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

I've been worried about the way my brain seems to dart hither and yon, never wanting to stay focused on any particular subject for long. I wondered if it was a form of Attention Deficit Disorder. Now I find I'm not alone - that the wandering mind seems to be a common occurrence. Some scientists have been studying the phenomona for several years trying to find out just why it happens and if there are ways to help us focus better. It seems two activities during which our mind wanders most are reading and driving (yeeow!) and that the mind wanders most when we try to prevent it from doing so. Here are a few articles about the subject:

I wonder if we're seeing an evolution of the brain. These scientists say that the thing our mind most wanders to are mental "to do" lists. And that brings me back to thinking of ye olde caveman - what kind of "to do" lists was he thinking about?1) find mammoth2) kill mammoth3) eat mammoth3) butcher rest of mammoth4) get back to cave with mammoth meat5) draw pictures on cave wall

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Another recent page from my art journal. I'm taking some advice from The Image Doctors to help me out of my creative rut, which is to not take my collages so seriously. I have quite a few clippings of images that I like but I don't use them because I tell myself I've got to save them for some imaginary future masterpiece. I can't see me creating a masterpiece if I never practice so I'm trying to be more spontaneous and just put together elements that attract my eye without worrying too much about it being a "masterpiece." If I'm not having fun, what's the point of doing it?

A video of Hillary Clinton superimposed onto an old Apple Computer ad has popped up on YouTube. The original Apple ad aired only once, during the 1984 Super Bowl. Here it is. And Here is the rather clever take-off on the ad. Note that the hero in the clip is now wearing an iPod.

Monday, March 19, 2007

One of the signs of spring is that first wasp you get inside the house. This one relentlessly traversed the front window for more than an hour, searching for a way back to the great outdoors. I followed it for as long as I dared with my macro lens only half an inch away, fearing I might touch the little animal and provoke it. It really creeped me out when it tilted its head and looked directly into the glass. That's when I had to walk away.

I'm not sure why wasps spook me. I don't remember seeing any of those black & white monster movies of the 50s with a wasp. Ants, yeah. Spiders, oooh, and how. But no wasps. I don't think I'd ever really seen a wasp until my family moved to Dallas when I was eleven years old. There were so many creepy crawlers in Texas that I never imagined really existed I was always getting freaked out by something or another. The wasps seemed so ominous, slowly circling with their back legs dangling beneath them; you never knew who they were after. My younger brother, too, was particularly frightened, and to this day he will duck and flee the presence of such a monster.

I got over most of my fears of wasps after I realized they were mostly non-aggressive.

Until I read "The Shining", that is. In a few visceral paragraphs, Stephen King undid years of good sense. You wanna be scared of wasps? and a few other things? Read this book.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Here's a recent page from my art journal, which I have neglected for some time. This is one of the first 5x7 collages where I didn't feel intimidated by the larger page size (my first journal was 3 1/2 x 4 1/2).

I've been really frustrated that my collages don't turn out how I think they should. The truth is I'm out of practice and practice is what usually allows you to get better at something. I've been listening to about half a dozen podcasts to improve my foreign language skills and it suddenly hit me: Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Someone once told me, "Repetition is the Law of Memory." I don't know if it's been codified but listening to a skilled speaker and repeating simple phrases seems to be the key in all these podcasts for learning both pronounciation and vocabulary in another language and it was also a key ingredient of language classes I attended in college. So what I'm planning is to apply the same principle to collage. I cracked open one of my books on Art Journaling and I'm going to imitate the examples of those more skilled than myself in order to learn technique and eventually have my collages looking more like I would like them to look.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

I can't believe people still pinch those who don't wear green on St. Patrick's Day. I'm ecstatic, therefore, that the day falls on the weekend this year so I'm not required to endure the extremely bad jokes of a particular colleague at work. Dare I say, "bay, humbug!"?

Here's a guide to the origins of Green Beer. I particularly enjoyed this line from the article by Carolyn Heneghan (is that Irish?) regarding Saint Paddy's special day: "...it is also one of the most hated holidays in Ireland itself, no doubt popularized namely by North American partiers. If you plan on being in Ireland this Spring Break, please do not ask for a green beer if you'd rather avoid an Irish fist to the temple."

Friday, March 16, 2007

I came across this old ad from a 1950s Sears Catalog for Roy Rogers/Dale Evans costuming for children and began to wax nostalgic.I remember watching his tv show when I was a kid, though now I think they were probably reruns, as I hadn't been born yet when the show first appeared. I'm guessing this was one of earliest marketing campaigns driven by a tv show.

I had a Roy Rogers lunchbox I used to take to school during the winter. I wondered if I could find one for sale but when I saw what was available I found I couldn't remember exactly what my lunchbox had looked like. I think it was the one I've picture here, which doesn't seem to be the original design.The bidding for this rusty box on ebay starts at $32, while the original design goes for about $400.

Then I started looking for the Yellow Submarine lunchbox I took with me to high school. My friend CT had an identical box and every day we would sit in the lunchroom at Kimball High and flip open the metal lids of our matching tin boxes and extricate our matching yellow thermos bottles. I was making my first foray into vegetarianism as I hated sandwiches almost as much as standing in line for the awful cafeteria food peculiar to schools in those days. I would bring raw pieces of coconut in baggies to serve as my protein.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Is it early signs of Alzheimer's Disease?Do I have A.A.D.D.?Is it a P.M.T.? (post menopausal thing?)Or am I just Plain Loco?

I'm beginning to think Attention Deficit Disorder is a byproduct of modern society's requirement that a person, even a child, must be able to multi-task at any given time. Those who unthinkingly drive, talk on the phone, chew gum and juggle at the same time are "normal". Those who freak have A.D.D. I don't think it's human nature to want to multi-task. Can you imagine the proverbial "cave man" hunting a t-rex while trying to learn another language while worrying about what the price of gas will be when he gets back to the cave, while wondering if his paycheck will clear in time for his bills to get paid without incurring overage charges, while figuring out whether he can get from his son's soccer practice to his daughter's track meet?

I think A.D.D. occurs because people are trying to to things in a linear fashion rather than simultaneously. They're guilty of reminding us that computers have not made our lives easier, have not given us more leisure time, and have not made us a paperless society.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

I liked the few tracks of Arcade Fire's first CD, "Funeral", that I heard but never got around to hearing the whole CD so I can't rightly compare the two. This one was on sale at Target last week for $8 and I got 10% off with a coupon so I bought it, sound unheard.

The dark religious theme is paired alternately with a wall of anthemic sound or acoustic guitar which includes violins and a pipe organ crescendo Saint Saens would die for. Angelic children voices sail over a pulsing bass line. . My own dark attitude toward religion probably accounts for my attraction to many of the tracks, especially "Windowsill":

Don't wanna hear the noises on TV.Don't want the salesmen coming after me.Don't wanna live in my father's house no more.Don't want it faster, I don't want it free.Don't wanna show you what they done to me.Don't wanna live in my father's house no more.

Arcade Fire was part of the huge wave of musicians that surged out of Montreal in 2006 and from the reports I've read this album has exceeded expectations. Neon Biblewill likely require multiple listening sessions for those who want to get to the bottom of the many layers of vocals and music.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Whoa! almost a week since I posted. Time flies when you're busy, especially when you're accompanied by gorgeous scenery like these Bradford Pear trees that popped open all over North Texas last week. I didn't need this sign to tell me to "Stop and Look!"

As for Hitler....er Bush.....er Cheney.....er, oh yeah, this week it's Rick "governor" Perry, our worthless republican state ruler who's finally getting some come-uppance. First he tries to saddle Texas with 11 more dirty coal plants from the evil TXU (electric) people and then issues an edict that all school-age girls MUST get the new HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. Even his republican henchmen in the state senate have taken offense at "teflon hair" Perry's attempt to exert personal power. Thing is, in Texas, the governor has no real official power; it's mostly through influence of his personality that he gets things done. Perry was Bush's little protege, and like Bush, he looked good in a crisis. His high profile during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and throughout the approach of Hurricane Rita almost made me like him, much as Bush's appearances after 9-11 made folks like him. Then they both overstepped their positions. Here's hoping Karma takes its course.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

so should I credit the successful sale of my house in Dallas to faith or luck?

I heard about the Catholic tradition of burying a statue of Saint Joseph in your yard to sell your house from a co-worker who had friends who swore by it. Since I never got even one offer when I had the house on the market for 9 months in 2004 I thought I would take help wherever I could find it.

I bought an "official" St. Joseph House-Selling kit, which included this tiny plastic statue of said saint, a page of instructions, and a prayer card. Per instructions I buried the statue and every day made a special point to recite the prayer, which is really rather a poetic request:

Remember, o most illustrious patriarch St. Joseph, on the testimony of St. Teresa, thy devoted servant, never hath it been heard that anyone who has invoked thy protection or sought thy mediation has not obtained relief. In this confidence I come before thee, my loving protector, chaste spouse of Mary, foster-father of the Saviour of men, and dispenser of the treasures of His Sacred Heart. Despise not my earnest prayer, but graciously hear and obtain my petition.

I used the prayer card to recite the proper words and after a few days I had them memorized. After two weeks there had been 11 showings of the house and I had an offer. I continued to recite the prayer daily, sometimes more than once, and yesterday the house was sold.

Oddly, this transaction occurred on the anniversary of the date I was "saved" by "asking Jesus into my heart" in 1972. I remember this date because a lot of strange things happened afterward relating to the day. I'll just say my relationship with Jesus ended badly and I haven't practiced religion for many many years.

Christians might say this occurrence is God manifesting himself to me.Some eastern-religion-fan might say the prayer was really a mantra in disguise.My new-age friends might say my focus on the prayer was really me focusing my energy away from the worry of selling the house thus preventing negative energy blocking the way.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

I worked a nearly normal afternoon shift Sunday. Then I had to decompress, sleep fast & get up at dawn for an hour and a half drive to work in Monday's Rush Hour. Ha! Doing 20 on a 65 mph freeway is not my idea of Rushing. This was so I could attend a boring mostly useless corporate orientation about stuff I already know or don't really need to know. No wonder we're so inefficient. Meetings meetings meetings. I hate meetings. At least my butt got plenty of sleep during the day. My inner time clock is all screwed up. I came home in the afternoon about the time I should have been going to work. Couldn't stay awake til my normal bedtime so my brain is in a funk.

If I can just hold this position til Sunday I'll be all set for Daylight Savings Time.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Superman decided to get a new job. The disadvan- tages of having multiple personality disorder, er, an alter-ego were becoming more apparent as each day passed. Clark Kent was tired of being out-scooped by Lois Lane. Every time he had to sneak out of the office to save the world he missed a big story while Lois would be covering it and getting her by-line on the front page. While it was true Superman adored Lois, (Noel? Margot? Teri? who was it this year?) Clark felt spending so much time with her was a ball and chain. He wasn't ready to settle down. And the incessant belittling by that micro-manager Perry White was getting on his nerves.

So Clark quit the Daily Planet and opened a restaurant. At last he could use his superpowers to advantage on the job, checking the souffle in the over with his x-ray vision and using his heatray vision to ensure those dishes were delivered piping hot to expectant diners. He had to hire a chef for each shift and waitstaff to cover the place when he was out fighting crime but Clark was ecstatic. At last HE was the boss.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Yesterday the dj on the "oldies" radio station said it was "National Wear-a-Smile Day". Now, I'd never heard of this special day but it got me to thinking about the point of it. It seemed like one of those pointless redundant type themes concocted by some ad agency solely for the purpose of selling greeting cards. Why designate one particular day for this event? Is it because the majority of people do NOT wear smiles? Do people need to be compelled via a designated day that they must wear a smile? Will those folks who are depressed or angry flash a fake smile because of this day?

I don't know, but it was a good excuse to display this photo I took while practicing backlit macro shots. My eyes are so bad I can't seem to focus the lens properly. Oh, for a pair of glasses that would focus my eyes and not fall off my face. That would make ME smile.

By the way, I googled "wear-a-smile day" and could find no mention of it.